Sens. Deevers, Hamilton: loopholes lead to estimated 3,200 annual abortions in Oklahoma

Past pro-life legislation is keeping the practice of abortion alive and well through loopholes and a refusal to establish equal justice under the law. This is the sad reality of the post-Dobbs scene. Oklahoma needs to pass a bill to abolish abortion.

Photo: An abortion billboard along I-35 this past summer.

Hamilton and Deevers Respond to Claims of ‘Zero’ Abortions, Highlight the Estimated 3,274 Annual Abortions in Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA CITY (January 3rd) — Sen. Dusty Deevers, R-Elgin, and Sen. Warren Hamilton, R-McCurtain, responded on Friday to comments made by Oklahoma House Speaker Kyle Hilbert regarding abortion legislation in the upcoming session. Hilbert is quoted by Oklahoma Voice as saying, “When there’s not any reported abortions, I don’t know how you further reduce from zero.”

“As a pastor and local activist, I have been engaged in the fight to protect preborn children for years prior to becoming a Senator. I have much respect for Speaker Hilbert as Christian man, but as much as I desperately wish there were zero abortions in Oklahoma, zero ‘reported’ abortions is not the same thing as zero abortions,” Deevers said. “Data shows that roughly 3,274 self-managed abortions are legally performed annually in Oklahoma in addition to 4,000 abortions committed by Oklahomans driving to other states.”

Self-managed abortion is an abortion performed outside the formal medical system, most often through abortion pills ordered online and delivered through the mail. These abortions remain legal in Oklahoma due to express provisions in recently passed pro-life laws which establish that “Under no circumstances shall the mother of the unborn child be prosecuted for causing the death of the unborn child.” Given that there is usually no in-state actor in a self-managed abortion other than the mother, these abortions are functionally legal.

While Oklahoma Statute 63-1-733 technically outlaws self-managed abortion by establishing that “No woman shall perform or induce an abortion upon herself,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a December 2023 opinion in response to inquiry from Hamilton and seven other legislators that he would not enforce the statute, in part, because of the legislature’s insistence on not prosecuting self-managed abortion in recently passed pro-life laws.

New data from the Foundation to Abolish Abortion compiles statistics from the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New York Times, and the Society of Family Planning. As of August 2022, 2,864 self-managed abortions were occurring annually in Oklahoma. Between August 2022 and August 2024, there was a 14.3 percent national increase in self-managed abortion pill orders, which, if consistent in Oklahoma, would put the latest Oklahoma estimate at 3,274.

“3,274 little human beings are murdered annually on our watch,” Hamilton said. “As legislators, this fact should grieve us and stir us to continued action. We must keep fighting the good fight to protect the most innocent among us.”

Deevers also emphasized the presence of abortion pill advertising in Oklahoma.

“These murderous abortion pill companies know about the loopholes in our pro-life laws,” Deevers said. “The abortion pill billboards around our state and the streaming abortion pill advertisements to Oklahomans are a constant reminder of the insufficiency of current Oklahoma abortion law. While Attorney General Drummond ought to enforce what is already on the books, the current legislature needs to do our part by passing a clear law providing preborn children equal protection.”

Deevers and Hamilton have filed legislation in recent years to abolish abortion and intend to do so again in the 60th legislature.